


At Times They Sleep and Are Forgotten

by tinypinkmouse



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: But i like it anyways, Gen, I don't really know what this is, Introspection, Post-Skyfall, Sort Of, excpet weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 08:52:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13244790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinypinkmouse/pseuds/tinypinkmouse
Summary: It's some sort of accomplishment that in what seems such a new MI-6 (a new HQ, a new M, a new Q) it's still the same old 007. Of course, no one asks 007 what he thinks of that particular accomplishment.





	At Times They Sleep and Are Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. Going through my old abandoned fic ideas keeps unearthing some weird things. I didn't even remember I'd been into Bond for a while there, let alone tried to write anything for the fandom (even if it turned into this short, weird thing). :D

Q asks him once, a quiet whisper in his ear as he waits to take a shot (as they wait for someone to walk into their death), if he regrets coming back.

His lips quirk up a bit, in a bitter little smile that no one can see. "I always do," he says. And then his target walks into view, and he takes the shot.

As he packs his rifle away, the moment is gone and Q never follows up with the question that 007 would not have answered.

_"You always regret it, or you always come back?"_

It's no big secret that 00-agents don't live forever. (No one lives forever.) 00-agents live hard and fast and hardly ever live long enough to see retirement. It's a commonly held belief among those who even know about 00-agents, that forcing one into retirement is as good as pointing a gun at their heads and pulling the trigger. (One of you will end up dead.)

007 is no different from the rest, Q knows that better than most (he has so much knowledge at his fingertips). 007 has just defied the odds a bit longer than most. Broken a bit more than the rest. Still, it's some sort of accomplishment that in what seems such a new MI-6 (a new HQ, a new M, a new Q) it's still the same old 007. Of course, no one asks 007 what he thinks of that particular accomplishment.

Maybe they need that bit of consistency. Something familiar to keep hold of. Maybe that's why, when Q looks (curiosity is a horrible thing, and all those secrets are still only a few keystrokes away) he finds that 007 never passed the psychological check. M had still approved him for active duty, and this M, unlike the old one, doesn't even know 007.

When M died, she took some secrets with her, the ones even Q can't find. M, the new one, will find his own secrets to take to his grave. There's a file somewhere – existing only on paper – that holds at least one of those secrets, because there are things M needs to know (whoever M is).

Of course there are things a quartermaster needs to know as well, and maybe Q has his own list of secrets somewhere. Or maybe, when he still had a name he used to work with Q, and all the things he needed to know were passed on. "Watch out for Bond," Q had told him once, in passing (he was never sure if it was a warning or a request). And Q had, ever since.

00-agents die and so will 007, sooner or later. But there's a secret Q has still not found out, a secret that makes M send 007 out onto active duty against all better knowledge. It's what he's there for, after all, to die for queen and country (king and king and queen).

And one day, in the future, 007 will be dead and Q will figure out the secret. He'll shake the hand of a new 00-agent, it'll be a young man (or maybe, for once, a woman), with cold, hard blue (or gray or green or brown) eyes. A too familiar look in an unfamiliar face.

"Bond. James Bond," he (or she) will say, with a smile that doesn't reach the eyes.

Q will blink, and nod and say: "007, I presume."

007 is no different from any other 00, he'll die suddenly and brutally one day, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. After all, 00-agents don't live forever. But the secret is, 007 will.

The secret is, he'll always come back (he'll regret it every time).


End file.
